When the Fourmile Canyon fire was blazing through the mountains west of Boulder in early September, Charlie Martin was thousands of miles away at the bottom of the world.

Martin, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, was on a two-month stint in Antarctica when he learned that a wildfire was burning near his home on Mountain King Road northeast of Sugarloaf Mountain.

“One of my colleagues actually called me and said, ‘Hey, there’s a fire in your neighborhood,’ ” he said. “I went over to the lab — they have pretty good Internet connectivity in McMurdo — and listened to the (online) police scanner. I heard when the fire had gotten up to Mountain King, and I thought, ‘That’s not a very good sign.’ “

It wasn’t.

Martin realized later that his house was gone after his son, who lives in Boulder, sent him a picture of flames enveloping his home.

Martin said he and his wife, a fire scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, will rebuild — in part because it’s the best way to preserve equity. But they’re not planning to break ground any time soon.

“We realize that we have to be deliberate about what we’re doing,” he said. “We can’t just sit back, but we’re not rushing things. If we keep the process moving, a couple of years will work for us.”

The Martins aren’t the only ones taking their time. In the three months since the Fourmile fire engulfed 169 homes west of Boulder, only a small percentage of the victims have taken concrete steps to get the necessary approvals from the county to begin rebuilding.

In all, 11 building permits have been issued for structures in the 6,100 acres scorched by the fire that started on Labor Day.

There were three for garages and five decks. Only three of the permits were for replacing lost homes, according to Dale Case, director of Boulder County’s Land Use Department.

Every fire victim who has shown active interest in rebuilding has been assigned a case manager, said Garry Sanfacon, who heads the Fourmile Fire Recovery Center, which is the county’s one- stop shop for fire-related issues.

“So far, we have 13 case managers,” he said. “But that ranges from people who just want to know about the regulations to people who have drawings and want to start the submittal process.”

People who lost their homes in the Fourmile fire have two years to take advantage of a streamlined permitting process that allows them to rebuild essentially the same house in the same location without going through the county’s rigorous site-plan review.

Sanfacon said he hopes to have a better idea of who plans to rebuild and when by the end of the year.

“We’re contacting every single property owner whose homes or accessory structures were destroyed to do an assessment,” he said.

The Environmental Protection Agency said Friday it will pay $4.5 million to state, local and tribal governments for their emergency response to a mine spill that the EPA triggered, but the agency turned down $20.4 million in other requests for past and future expenses.

Ford Motor Co. is going ahead with plans to move small-car production from the U.S. to Mexico despite President-elect Donald Trump’s recent threats to impose tariffs on companies that move work abroad.